Ex-Russian Spy ‘Stable’ After Nerve Agent Attack in U.K.

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The police searched the home of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England. A police officer who assisted Mr. Skripal after the attack is also in a serious condition.CreditMatt Cardy/Getty Images

LONDON — The former Russian spy Sergei V. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, remain unconscious and are in critical but stable condition, Britain’s home secretary, Amber Rudd, told lawmakers on Thursday, adding that it was too early to apportion blame for a “brazen and reckless” attack involving a nerve agent.

A police officer who assisted the two victims, and was also hospitalized, is in serious but stable condition and is “conscious, talking and engaging,” Ms. Rudd added, in an update on an investigation that has stirred much speculation about Russian involvement. In a police statement, the officer was identified as Nick Bailey, a detective sergeant.

While she described the incident as an “attempted murder in the most cruel and public way,” Ms. Rudd said she would refrain from attributing blame until the hundreds of antiterrorism police and security officials working the case reached conclusions based on solid evidence.

“There will come a time for attribution,” Ms. Rudd said, promising that there would be “consequences” for those behind the attempt on the life of Mr. Skripal and his daughter, who were taken ill on Sunday afternoon in the city of Salisbury.

In 2006, a Russian court convicted Mr. Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s military intelligence arm, of selling secrets to the British. He was released in 2010 and sent to Britain as part of an exchange of spies.

Inevitably, the incident has revived memories of the murder in London of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian spy and critic of President Vladimir V. Putin who died in November 2006, aged 43, after ingesting polonium 210, a rare radioactive isotope.

That episode caused an international outcry and led to years of tension between Britain and Russia, though several British lawmakers have suggested that the government in London did not take tough enough measures against Moscow. It was not until 2016 that an official inquiry finally linked the killing to the Kremlin.

On Thursday, one Conservative lawmaker, Edward Leigh, said that circumstantial evidence that Russia was behind the Salisbury attack was strong and that, if its role were proved, it would be a “brazen act of war.” An opposition Labour Party lawmaker, Ben Bradshaw, referred to the “terrorist Russian state.”

On Wednesday Mark Rowley, Britain’s chief police official for counterterrorism and international security, said that Mr. Skripal, 66, and Ms. Skripal, 33, “were targeted specifically,” but did not say what kind of nerve agent was used, or even whether investigators had identified it.

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Mr. Skripal in court in Moscow in 2006. He was convicted of selling secrets, but then released and sent to Britain as part of an exchange of spies in 2010.CreditYury Senatorov/European Pressphoto Agency

On Thursday, the Wiltshire Police said that 21 people in all had been treated as a result of the nerve gas poisoning in Salisbury.

If the British government does ultimately attribute the attack to Russian state actors, the use of a nerve agent would suggest a significant statement was being made to other potential targets.

The Russian government has denied involvement, and on Wednesday the Russian embassy in London described warnings of potential British retaliation as “a testament of London’s growing unpredictability as a partner in international relations,” adding that British policy toward Russia was “inconsistent and looks rather miscalculated, not least in the eyes of the Russian public.”

The Russian news media had mostly ignored the nerve agent attack, until the evening news on Wednesday on the government-controlled Channel One, when the host issued a lightly veiled threat to those like Mr. Skripal who had “betrayed the motherland.”

“Being a traitor is one of the most dangerous professions in the world,” the host, Kirill Kleimenov, said, adding that the stress could be so severe as to turn a person’s hair white.

In an apparent attempt at humor, he also said that Mr. Skripal’s fate might have something to do with living in England, a place that has become home to hundreds of thousands of Russians, some of whom left to escape life — and sometimes death — under the government of Mr. Putin.

Whether you are a professional traitor or just hate Russia, Mr. Kleimenov said, “Don’t go to England. There is something wrong there. Maybe the climate.”

Wednesday’s edition of Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Russian tabloid, quoted an anonymous intelligence officer as saying that Mr. Skripal was no longer of interest to Russia’s security services, and blaming the incident on the British.

“What has happened is only in their interest. But with the poisoning they really put their foot in it, they acted too traditionally. Anyone who has studied history knows that it’s precisely the Brits who are champions in poisoning,” the officer was quoted as saying.

Stephen Castle reported from London, and Neil MacFarquhar from Moscow.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Ex-Russian Spy Is ‘Stable’ After an Attack in Britain. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe